The city taught him a lesson within three days.
It wasn't a dramatic lesson. No ambush. No revelation. Just repetition—small, relentless confirmations stacked one atop another until the conclusion became unavoidable.
Power here did not announce itself.
It blended.
Alex learned this by watching people who thought they were invisible.
A porter with scarred hands and a bent spine moved crates that should have required augmentation. No glow. No chant. Just leverage, timing, and muscles reinforced so subtly that even trained eyes would miss it unless they were looking for the absence of strain.
A seamstress stitched sigils into cloth that never shimmered, never activated outwardly—but dampened mana signatures passing through them like fog swallowing sound.
A tavern owner—bald, loud, seemingly harmless—never once raised his voice when disputes broke out. They ended anyway. Quickly. Quietly. People left with their pride intact and their tempers cooled, as if nudged by an unseen hand.
Alex watched all of it.
Cataloged.
Adjusted.
The system was unusually attentive.
{Urban adaptation continues. Behavioral mimicry improving.}
"I'm not mimicking," Alex muttered as he walked through a crowded market. "I'm learning."
{Distinction minimal.}
Chaos hummed with something like approval.
(This empire understands something your old one never did.)
Alex's jaw tightened slightly at the reminder. "That fear makes noise?"
(That fear needs an enemy.) Chaos replied. (This place has too many people to bother.)
That proved true when Alex finally went to register.
Not with the central authority—that would come later, if ever—but with a mercenary auxiliary office that handled low-tier contracts, labor security, and dispute mediation. The building was cramped, loud, and overflowing with applicants.
Perfect.
The clerk barely looked at him.
"Name?"
Alex gave it. His real name.
The clerk paused for half a second, eyes flicking to a ledger, then shrugged and wrote it down.
"Rank?"
"F," Alex said easily.
The clerk grunted. "Mid?"
"Yes."
"Background?"
"Drifter."
A pause. Another shrug.
"Work types?"
Alex listed them calmly. Escort. Perimeter patrol. Monster deterrence—non-lethal zones only. Sparring assistance.
The clerk stamped his paper.
"Don't die in the first week," he said without looking up. "Paperwork's a pain."
Alex stepped back into the street with a registered sigil that meant nothing and everything.
The system updated.
{Identity validation successful.}
"And the price?" Alex asked under his breath.
{Deferred.}
"Still not ominous," he replied dryly.
Chaos chuckled.
(It's ominous. You've just lived long enough to recognize it.)
Alex took contracts selectively.
Not the easy ones. Not the dangerous ones.
The busy ones.
Crowded routes. Escorting caravans through districts where threats were common but escalation was discouraged. Sparring in yards where ten fights happened at once and no one tracked individual performance unless someone made a scene.
He made sure he didn't.
In his first official spar, his opponent was an E-rank youth with too much confidence and too little control. Mana flared with every strike—bright, wasteful, loud.
Alex lost.
Convincingly.
He mistimed a step. Took a glancing blow. Yielded before the crowd got bored.
The system noted the choice.
{Outcome optimization deprioritized.}
"Good," Alex said later, icing his ribs alone. "I wasn't trying to win."
Chaos's voice drifted lazily through his thoughts.
(You let him feel strong.)
Alex closed his eyes. "I let him feel safe."
The city rewarded that instinct.
People remembered him—not as impressive, but as reliable. Someone who showed up. Someone who didn't escalate. Someone who handled things quietly and left before stories could grow teeth.
He trained when he could.
Early mornings. Late nights. Always away from witnesses.
Blade work remained his anchor. Knife-length weapons that could pass for tools. Short swords with worn hilts and no ornamentation. His mentor—still distant, still watching—occasionally corrected a stance with a tap of a cane or a muttered word.
"Too clean," the old man said once, not looking at him. "You'll draw eyes."
Alex adjusted immediately.
The system approved.
{Behavioral modulation: effective.}
Mana training became more precise.
Not stronger.
Never stronger.
Alex focused on zero-leak reinforcement while performing mundane tasks—walking, lifting, breathing. The city itself became a training environment. Crowds forced awareness. Noise forced focus. Unpredictability sharpened control.
His mana output never rose.
His presence shrank.
The mentor noticed.
Did not comment.
One evening, after a long escort through a trade district thick with people and thinner with patience, Alex returned to his room and sat on the bed, exhaustion finally settling into his bones.
He felt… stable.
That was new too.
The system spoke quietly.
{Crowd saturation reducing anomaly likelihood.}
"So hiding works," Alex murmured.
{Correction: dilution works.}
Chaos added, (A single drop of blood vanishes in the ocean.)
Alex exhaled slowly. "I'm not bleeding."
(Not yet.)
Silence stretched.
Alex stared at his hands—scarred, steady, unremarkable. He thought of the Aurelian Empire. Of exile. Of chains and ceremonies and fear dressed as righteousness.
None of it mattered here.
No one knew him.
No one cared.
And instead of relief, he felt… resolve.
"If power hides better in crowds," Alex said softly, "then I'll learn to disappear until it's time not to."
The system recorded the statement.
{Intent logged.}
Chaos's presence curled close, almost protective.
(Just remember.)
Alex raised an eyebrow internally. "Remember what?"
(The crowd is only protection until it isn't.)
Alex smiled faintly in the dim room.
"I know," he said. "That's why I'm watching back."
Outside, the city roared—vast, indifferent, alive.
And within it, Alex became exactly what it favored most.
Unremarkable.
For now.